Rainfall shocks and children’s school attendance: evidence from Uganda

The increasing frequency of negative rainfall shocks presents households with the challenging choice of whether to send their children to school or to withdraw them in order for them to provide support in the household. We use high-resolution spatial rainfall data matched with the georeferenced Uganda National Panel Survey data to estimate the effect of negative rainfall shocks on children’s school attendance. We find that exposure to negative rainfall shocks significantly reduces children’s school attendance by almost 10%. These results have important policy implications for improving children’s schooling, particularly in geographical areas that receive particularly erratic rainfalls, in Uganda.